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Or was that me backing off because, subconsciously, I didn’t want to be near Felix?
Probably.
Coach Sennett stepped into the locker room and all talking stopped as we waited for the usual practice instructions. Only he didn’t immediately launch into what we’d be working on this session, someone else came in behind him.
Jonah was with him. Camera around his neck. Limping slightly. Hesitant, he scanned the room and didn’t stop until his dark gaze settled on me. I thought I saw a change in his expression, not accusation over me tripping him, or anger that I wouldn’t talk to him, but a thoughtful considering glance. He smiled then—a cautious, perhaps hopeful smile.
I mean, he was possibly smiling at all of us.
But he was staring at me.
What the hell?
ChapterThree
Jonah
Jonah,stop staring!
I pulled my sight from Tyler to find Felix scowling at me as if I were a cockroach that had darted out of the woodwork unexpectedly, which pissed me off because, before he’d found the light side of The Force, he and I had been friends. Of a sort. Not that I was evil still, nor ever had been. I’d just been… stupid.
“Okay, men, listen up. Jonah here is the staff photographer for theChronicle. He’s asked to spend time with the team to chronicle…” Here Coach Sennett waited for a chuckle, but got none, so he went on, “… a year on the ice for a display next spring for the Fine Arts Symposium that Chesterford co-hosts with the Greater Harrisburg Youth in Arts Project.”
Everyone in skates looked totally unimpressed. Which I got. “Right,” Coach sighed. “Well, he’s gotten permission to be with the Coyotes from his student counselor and Mr. Wheeler from the paper, so here he is. Do what he asks. See you on the ice.”
And off Coach went, his duty done. The team stared at me as if they were waiting for me to ask them to strike a pose. Tyler and Felix were incredibly tense.
“Okay, so.” I ran my hand over my hair, my fingertips finding the stripes that Paul, my barber, had worked so skillfully into the sides of my hair. “What I’m looking for is nothing posed or set-up. I want to do a photo essay of high school hockey from the inside. What it’s really like—the long practices, the crush of keeping up your GPA while being expected to practice and play at peak performance.” The guys all muttered and gave me suspicious glances. Each of them was working their asses off to be noticed by scouts. Well, perhaps not all of them. Some were just here because they enjoyed the game, the camaraderie, and/or the way the hockey varsity letter looked on their jacket or college application. “I’ll be dogging you guys for the season, snapping images of real life, nothing fake. I want to see the sweat, the blood, and the agony of defeat.”
“Hey, no talking about losing in the locker room,” Shaun quickly interjected as he stopped taping his stick. The others nodded. “Brings bad juju.”
“Sorry, right, no talking about defeat,” I hurried to correct myself, my guts knotting up tightly every time my sight fell on Tyler and Felix. “Just pretend I’m not here.”
“That should be easy,” I heard Felix mumble.
Soren gave him an elbow in the ribs. Then talk in the room shifted from me, thank God, to the upcoming practice. I removed my lens cap as I mulled over whether this idea was really as brilliant as I had originally thought it would be. A few days ago, after reading an online article about famous sports photographers, the idea had popped into my head. If I could get permission from the school and the parental units, I could be around the team. Being around the team meant being able to, hopefully, get close enough to apologize to Tyler. My first approach had been a spectacular fail, which I totally got. Of course, where the Coyotes were, Felix was too. He and I had fallen out of friendship, or whatever, which was fine, if that was how he wanted to play it, but at least have the balls to tell me to my face. Ghosting someone was lame.
“No taking pictures of my ass,” Soren called out as he laced up his skates. The room broke into a round of chuckles, except for Tyler who was eyeballing me as if someone had dropped a rattlesnake into the smelly locker room. “Keep it PG-13 for my fans.”
“I’ve seen your ass, Rowe. It ain’t worth the film,” someone from behind me shouted. Felix seemed tight, as if he wanted to say something snarky, but didn’t quite dare. Which was how I felt most of the time now. Judged. Which I deserved.
“I’ll have you know I have an ass that would stop a clock,” Soren replied.
“What does that even mean?” Tyler asked, whipping his hair from his face only to have it swoop back down over his eye. It was a good look for him.
“I don’t know. My grandfather says it to my grandmother all the time,” Soren answered with a shrug.
I slid around the room quietly, taking pictures steadily, sometimes dropping to one knee or even to sit on the floor as the team readied itself for practice. As I lined up shots, checked for lighting, and crawled on all fours to get a killer picture of discarded skates resting on the rubber matting, I had a few minutes of pure artistic bliss. My mind was on nothing other than the images and the models. And that worked well until the guys hit the ice and my camera followed Tyler. Keeping the lens on him, I eased away from the high-speed skating drills to a corner of the rink, my camera locked onto Tyler. I wasn’t wholly aware of being zeroed in on the boy with the wide smile and flicky hair. When he snaked around some cones on the ice like a speed demon, I lowered the camera and simply let his joy at being the fastest skater through the cones wash over me. His smile brought on one of my own.
Then Felix got into my face. I literally jerked back in surprise when my ex-friend skidded to a halt in front of me. Coach was telling a few guys to clear the ice of cones so they could practice shooting drills.
“If you’re here to give Tyler shit, I won’t let you do that,” Felix snarled, his words low and menacing. Or would have been if I feared him, which I wasn’t because I’d seen the new side of Felix, and he wasn’t as bad a person as I’d thought.
“What, are you his personal protector now?” I asked, easing back until my ass met the boards. The sounds of young men goofing off filled the rink. Coach blew on his whistle a few times.
Felix glanced over his shoulder before leveling a look at me. “Just don’t fuck with him,” he warned as he tightened his grip on his stick.
“Hey, I’m not going to do anything as bad as punching him in the face. Which is what you did.” Felix paled at the reminder. “Yeah, I remember that day. I remember all the times I watched you bully students who got in your way, so don’t come at me with your new squeaky-clean holy-as–a-nun shit because I know just who you are.”
